New partner, same outcome at Nicolle defends Elite Men's Foursomes Championship title

After winning the inaugural event alongside Jake Marshall 12 months ago, this time around Nicolle teamed up with his good mate CJ Elmy to claim the spoils as they came through an entertaining and extremely close final at the second extra hole on Friday night against Tom Le Huray and Wayne Moore, who really found their mojo in the match-play stages having scraped through the 18-hole qualifier.

‘It’s great,’ said Nicolle of defending the title, albeit with a new partner.

‘It was nice last year with Jake, I hadn’t played a tremendous amount of golf with him before that, but I know CJ’s game pretty well, we play quite a lot together anyway, so to play with a good friend and to go out and win it is pretty special.’

With the form both pairs had shown in the knock-out rounds, it was always likely to be a tight match and one that was hard to predict.

There was little to separate the pairings over the front nine.

After halving the first, they then exchanged the next two holes thanks to an excellent up-and-down par save apiece – Le Huray and Moore making theirs from off the race track down below the second green while Nicolle played a fine flop shot on the third to get back to all-square immediately.

But it was Le Huray and Moore who had a slender one-hole lead at the turn thanks to playing the par-four fifth almost perfectly with the latter’s long drive followed up by a wedge to 5ft by his partner before Moore rolled in the birdie putt.

Five successive halves followed, although Elmy and Nicolle were frustrated not to get back on level terms on the 10th after the 2019 Island champion launched a driver up to within five yards of the green but they only ended up making a par.

However, that in itself seemed to ignite their fire and from 1 down going to the 11th, they were 2 up by the time they reached the 14th tee.

An exquisite chip and run from Elmy from just short of the 11th green secured a four that was good enough to get back on level terms then Nicolle followed that up with a three-iron straight into the sun to pin-high on the green at the 12th whereas their opponents short-sided themselves on the hill with the hole cut up on the right, too, giving them little margin for error. Once again, a par won the hole and the lead had swiftly changed hands.

A nicely-judged wedge from Nicolle on 13 after he watched Le Huray’s approach land on a down slope and shoot through the green then doubled the lead with Elmy not even required to putt.

He did on the next green, though, and when he sank an 8ft birdie putt to make Moore’s seven-footer suddenly seem twice the length, it looked as if the end might be nigh.

However, Moore crucially followed him in to stem the tide.

Another half in fours came at the 15th, but the tension was starting to build and it showed on the next green.

Le Huray thought he had let a golden chance slip by when he missed an 8ft birdie putt down the hill on the high side, but Elmy’s subsequent 3ft par attempt lipped out and the gap was down to one.

Having just missed from within three paces, what Le Huray did next more than made up for it and then some as he came up with the shot of the championship.

Left with 97 yards to the hole from the bottom of the hill on the right-hand side of the 17th fairway, he initially had to stop in his back swing as a group of out-of-sight youths starting singing along noisily to the Justin Bieber track ‘Baby’.

The player gave a wry grin as if he could not believe his bad luck that he would have to play to that background serenading, but he gathered himself, stepped up and flushed a gap wedge right over the top of the flag and on landing the ball zipped back with instant spin straight into the hole for an amazing eagle.

When asked about that shot afterwards, Elmy had a wry grin.

‘You just say good shot and carry on. We were all square going down the last so you just try to win that hole – the job doesn’t change,’ he said.

With the pairs back level, it was virtually inevitable that this one would require extra holes and pars on the 18th and 19th took them back out to the second along the Ladies Bay coastline.

It was to that picturesque backdrop with the sun setting that the title was finally decided.

Both teams hit good tee shots, but Moore was just short and right with his approach whereas Elmy safely found the putting surface.

Le Huray opted to putt over the shoulder between himself and the hole, coming up 7ft short and after Nicolle had cosied up his putt to ‘gimme’ distance, Moore allowed for just too much break with his par attempt and it remained above the hole – cue the congratulatory handshakes.

‘We certainly played well in the week to get us into this position, so before we went out it was very much concentrate on keeping the ball in play, putting pressure on the opponents when we could,’ Nicolle said.

‘We didn’t get off to the best of starts but we managed to turn it around on the back nine.

‘“Tank” hitting that exceptional shot on 17 again put us under some pressure, but we managed to see it off, which was great.’